Take note of Gar Gar Mandla, the first ever commercial film made in Kundapura language. Presented by Panak Makkal Movies and Inkfinite Pictures, the film is directed by music director-turned-feature-film-maker Ravi Basrur. “Fourteen years ago, I started off as a music programmer and have worked in about 56 films. My first film as music director was Ugramm. Gar Gar Mandla will be my directorial debut,” says Ravi.
Interestingly, the songs Undadi Gunda whose lyrics have been penned by Yograj Bhat and Anitha O Anitha have become most popular in the social media. “I have released 22 songs in Kundapur language. I found that a few songs from the album were hits only after a year and that too from people living abroad. I had spent almost seven to eight lakhs for the album and had distributed it free of cost. Though I used to come up with an album every year, this time I chose to do a feature film with four songs, including title song Kathle aata shuru ayithu,” he explains.
Ravi, through Gar Gar Mandla, has tried to capture harsh realities and how people are settling for it. “Gar-Gar... means thirogo bhoomi (the rotating earth). Today we see a lot of bad things, and we commoners have become mute spectators. Gar Gar... has a commercial appeal, for which I picked up local talents of Kundapur and trained them before they faced the camera. Newcomers Adarsh, Shamita, Guru and Vijay Basrur are happy to start their career with this project. Though it is a universal subject, I will be able to release the film only in Kundapur. The movie will hit the screens by the first week of April. Ugrram director Prashanth Neel has taken up the distribution,” he says.